Search results for "Agency"
showing 10 items of 578 documents
A Simplified LCA Tool for Solar Heating and Cooling Systems
2016
Abstract This paper presents a user-friendly Life Cycle Assessment tool, which aims to support researchers, designers and decision-makers in evaluating the life cycle energy and environmental advantages related to the use of solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems in substitution of conventional ones, considering specific climatic conditions and building loads. The tool was developed within the Task 48 “Quality Assurance & Support Measures for Solar Cooling Systems”, promoted by the International Energy Agency in the framework of the SHC Programme.
Between a rock and a hard place : middle managers' ethical decision making and behaviour in the organisational context
2018
This study increases knowledge and understanding of middle managers’ ethical decision-making and behaviour within the context of Finnish higher education. The aim of the research is to develop a new framework for ethical decision-making and behaviour by combining prior theories and empirical knowledge. This dissertation consists of an introductory essay and three articles. The main argument of this research is that through organisations’ socialisation processes, middle managers adopt socially defined managerial roles, which affect their ethical decision-making and ethical conduct. We can say that especially the ethical organisational culture is significant for middle managers’ understanding…
Ethnographic approach to participation in EU policy : developing polyspatial agency
2022
This article uses an ethnographic approach to study citizens’ participation in the context of participatory practices organized in the framework of cultural policy of the European Union. It focuses on one EU policy action, European Heritage Label (EHL) and one cultural heritage site that has received this label. The research data was collected through participant observation and interviews with young people who participated in the activities organized on and by the site. This article asks: what meanings the participants give to participation. By analysing the participants’ experiences of the site and their conceptions of participation, I develop the notion of ‘polyspatial agency’. The ethno…
Small agency and precarious residency in Afghan refugee families
2020
This chapter examines agency and ways of enduring suffering in Afghan families in a small Finnish town. Three stories, where the mothers and children have lived in Finland for some years already, but the fathers have arrived during the 2015 large-scale migration, are presented and analysed. Ethnographic methods are used in enquiring how family members endure suffering when they are faced with the threat of deportation of a family member. Our results show that fathers’ precarious residency has an impact on family members’ agency. First, the informants were enduring alone, and thus the social element, being able to share one’s struggles of enduring, was missing. Second, it was not only one ty…
From a Disney princess to a modern-day queen : agency and womanhood in Disney lyrics
2015
Walt Disney Company on kulttuurisen ja taloudellisen menestyksensä myötä vaikuttanut suuresti naisidentiteettien muodostumiseen. Disney tarjoaa viihdettä koko perheelle, mutta viime aikoina Disney on keskittynyt erityisesti luomaan ohjelmia ja tuotesarjoja nuorille tytöille. Yksi näistä myyntimenestyksistä on Disney Princess –tuotesarja, jonka kahdeksan Disney -prinsessaa toimivat lukuisten tuotteiden kasvoina. Tyypillinen Disney -prinsessa on kaunis, hyväsydäminen ja viaton sekä usein vahvojen naishahmojen vihan uhri. Erityisesti kolme ensimmäistä prinsessaa (Lumikki, Tuhkimo ja Prinsessa Ruusunen) edustavat hyvin patriarkaalista naiskuvaa, jonka mukaan nainen odottaa passiivisesti hääpäiv…
Non-abusing mothers’ agency after disclosure of the child’s extra-familial sexual abuse
2020
This qualitative study analysed the agency of eight non-abusing mothers in the Turkish Cypriot Community after disclosure that their child had been sexually abused by someone outside the family. The aim was to discover how, after disclosure, such mothers act to protect their children in the contexts of their family and community. The data were gathered via semi-structured in-depth interviews and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). In the nuclear family context, maternal agency emerged in the form of motherhood skills, including emotionally supporting the abused child, double-checking the child’s safety or limiting the child’s mobility, and controlling the actions…
La presenza femminile nell'istituzione della 'proxenia'
2021
Groups as Persons? A Suggestion for a Hegelian Turn
2017
AbstractChristian List and Philip Pettit have recently argued for a performative theory of personhood in which all agents who manage to perform in the space of obligations are taken as persons. Based on this account they claim that group agents are also persons. This theory has been challenged on the grounds of its historical accuracy, lack of political relevance, and contestability of the concept of personhood. This paper aims to take a new perspective on the debate by approaching it through the Hegelian idea of recognition. The claim is that recognition theory provides a multi-dimensional view of personhood that gives a clearer account of what is at stake with collective personhood.
Behind the curtain of international diversification: An agency theory perspective
2018
This paper dissects the antecedents of international diversification through the lens of the agency cost of free cash flow arguments. It explores whether the partial convergence of interests among managers, majority shareholders, and minority shareholders affects a firm's choice to diversify internationally. Using a sample panel of 60 Italian firms evaluated longitudinally from 2004 to 2014, the study tests whether a firm's international diversification is affected by its free cash flow (as the ultimate source of managerial discretion) and debt (as the main constraint to managerial discretion), especially in firm contexts that exacerbate agency problems. We find that the effects on internat…
Staff Members’ Professional Agency within the Staff Community and the Education Policies: Supporting Integration in Multicultural and Multiling…
2022
In recent decades, increased diversity and migration have challenged school staff members’ ways of working. This study aimed to identify the challenges faced by Finnish school staff in supporting students with migrant backgrounds, and to elaborate on how they enact professional agency toward these challenges. The data consist of 15 thematic interviews with staff members across various work positions in two Finnish lower secondary schools. Based on thematic analysis, the challenges within the staff community and the education policies were found to include the following: (1) the diversification of students makes tensions more visible in the staff community, and (2) inflexible education polic…